We Can Do Better Than Cope!
Evidence is mounting that violent methods do not change things for the better. To insist otherwise is "cope". Nonviolent action offers a more authentic, realistic, and hopeful perspective.
The word “cope” has been part of our slang since the 1950s, when it meant “dealing with” or “getting through” a difficult situation. But I recently came across a new use of the word “cope” that’s markedly darker, referring to the desperate measures many of us take to ease our existential angst. In this usage, which started becoming popular online around 2020, “cope” is “a pattern of thought that intentionally reaches a conclusion that is distant from the objective truth, in order to make us feel better.”
Rather than authentically coming to terms with difficulty, this “cope” sounds a bit like good, old-fashioned denial seasoned with whatever story you need to tell yourself to make the feeling of doom go away.
Many of us are feeling overwhelmed by our newsfeeds these days. Finding coping mechanisms is not an option; we’re desperate to restore a sense of genuine hope in the future of our nation and our planet. So we are turning to prayer and meditation, mindfulness exercises, activism and protests to make an impact. All those things are necessary and good; but it’s becoming harder to chase away the feeling that the future is bleak no matter what we do. We wonder if anything we are doing can change things for the better. Beneath all our mindfulness and activism lurks a nagging doubt that all of it is just a masterful “cope”.
In Wicked, Glinda pulls off a masterful cope after she and Elphaba discover that the Wizard is behind Dr. Dillamond’s arrest. In direct contradiction of the evidence, Glinda believes that all Elphaba has to do is say she is sorry, and the Wizard will magically reform his ways and be on their side. These are the lyrics Glinda sings in Defying Gravity:
Elphie, listen to me, just say you’re sorry
You can still be with the Wizard
What you’ve worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted.
Glinda “copes” to preserve her belief in the goodness of the Wizard — but as we’ll see in Wicked: For Good later this month, her cope leads to disaster. Glinda is not a bad witch, and we are not bad people if we seek comfort through cope. In fact, if a good cope quiets our anxiety, we may be able to confront the feeling of doom more directly.
Suzanne Ross
A good place to start is to examine how a feeling of doom affects the choices we make. If nothing we do can make a difference, then doing nothing is the only choice available to us. And doing nothing under a feeling of doom can leave us trapped in what feels like an extended, useless pause. When we do nothing in the face of actual threats to our life, liberty, and well-being, or that of others, when we fail to act in ways that can change things for the better, then we may soon justify any action as better than none.
But, I believe, such thinking requires reframing. In some situations, doing nothing can be a great choice! There’s a traditional African saying that cautions against immediate or rash reactions: “The times are urgent; let us slow down.” Pausing before acting can be the wisest thing if we want to deescalate a volatile situation, because our immediate reactions often reflect back the anger, hatred, or violence that is being directed toward us. If we use the pause to discover that nonviolence provides a more creative way to respond then it can be quite productive, even though it may look like nothing is happening.
I’m aware that some might see my commitment to nonviolence as a form of “cope”. To me, though, the opposite is true: the belief in violence is the “cope” that conveniently shields us from the hard truth that fighting for liberty requires patience and vulnerability and a relentless fixation on the humanity of others. The cope we have been using to justify our violent behaviors is not working quite so well anymore; evidence is mounting that violent methods do not change things for the better. In fact, they make things worse. The great practitioner of nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi, put it this way: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
Brent Kallmer
In that sense, I am grateful for the feeling of doom we are experiencing, because I think it signals our awakening to the futility of violence, and of the belief that dehumanizing tactics can ever bring us peace. If we allow ourselves to imagine that doom is not inevitable and that a future is possible, then many other choices become available to us. The good news is that there are multiple nonviolent strategies being used by peacebuilders all over the globe to nurture hope and create the conditions for sustainable peace. I will offer two examples, but there are thousands more:
For over 22 years, Nonviolent Peaceforce has been sending unarmed teams to successfully protect civilians caught in the crossfire of armed conflict. They are proving the effectiveness of nonviolent strategies to keep people safe in places like Iraq, South Sudan, Ukraine and the Philippines.
On Saturday October 18 in the US, nearly 7 million people participated in nonviolent #NoKings protests in 2,700 communities across the country. In addition, significant noncooperation actions are taking place such as major airports are refusing to play a partisan video clip of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming the government shut down on Democrats.
Rebekah Riess, Alaa Elassar, Tori B. Powell, Zoe Sottile, Emma Tucker, Danya Gainor
We can do better than cope — and we are doing better! We are facing the objective truth and taking seriously Dr. Martin Luther King’s warning about our future: “The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
The wonderful thing about that choice is that nonviolence is not a dream or fantasy. It is real. It’s happening all around us. We don’t need to invent anything at all. All we need to do is stop coping and start living in the real world, which is filled with more hope than you can imagine.
As a civilian catastrophe unfolds in Darfur, Nonviolent Peaceforce is responding to the emergency. Visit them for their latest reports, and to see how you can help.
And, for more examples of hope-filled action, visit Nonviolence News for weekly updates on the nonviolent movements creating change for the better all over the world.